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River Council Grills EPA on Silver Lake Cleanup

A floating payloader is being used to pull up debris from Silver Lake;  disturbing the sediment caused recent spikes in airborne PCBs.

LENOX, Mass. —  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was taken to task on Wednesday for not doing enough to alert residents around Pittsfield's Silver Lake to airborne PCBs.

The toxic and cancer-linked polychlorinated biphenyls were used by General Electric in capacitor production for years.

"This is really unacceptable," said Judy Herkimer, director of the Housatonic Environmental Action League. "It's another tragedy of the Consent Decree."

Herkimer blasted the EPA for not notifying the public of the spikes in airborne levels, which resulted from sediment being stirred up while removing major debris, including piers, pipes, tree branches and several automobiles. While contamination exceeding the notification levels requires that GE must alert the EPA, Herkimer felt that more effort ought to have been made to notify neighboring Pittsfield residents.

That was one of the issues of the cleanup of Silver Lake that representatives of local environmental groups were critical of at the Housatonic River Citizens Coordinating Council meeting at the Lenox Library on Wednesday.

While a proposed "Rest of the River" cleanup plan is still inching toward a hoped-for Labor Day release, GE has recently completed the removal of large amounts of contaminated sediment and other debris at the Pittsfield source of Housatonic River pollution. The river cleanup is being done under the consent decree signed by GE, governmental agencies and other partners.

The remediation is preparing to enter the next project phase, that of capping the lake bottom, the council was told in a presentation by David Dickerson, who manages the EPA's involvement in the cleanup. While some parties involved in the public vetting of the process have long been skeptical of the capping plan, particulars of the most recent work provoked additional concerns from several members of the council.

That included Dickerson's reports that work at the lake was temporarily halted two weeks ago when testing revealed airborne PCBs exceeding alert and notification levels, first on April 24 and then again on May 2, resulting in a halt from the latter date until May 7.

Dickerson said that while the levels were not considered dangerous, this information was uploaded to the EPA's website, and that the city of Pittsfield and the Pittsfield Economic Development Agency were contacted as well. On April 25, the EPA's Facebook page for the Housatonic River cleanup also posted several photos of cars plucked from the lake as part of the difficult debris removal process.

"Levels above the action levels, 24 hours a day, over a long term, years or decades is what has to happen before there is a significant human health risk," said Dickerson.

Herkimer was having none of it.

"I am stunned at how many actionable levels you've had, and you stand there and you give us the pat answer of how many decades of exposure and how many micrograms per kilogram of air intake people have to have before it adversely effects them," she responded. "Guess what? They've been living there four decades being adversely affected, breathing in volatized PCBs."

A similar incident of raised levels occurred in September 2012, at which time the EPA instructed GE that it must implement improved work practices and increased air monitoring at the site of the work. They can be read here and here. 

One several automobiles pulled out of Silver Lake.

Berkshire Environmental Action Team Executive Director Jane Winn questioned the appropriateness of the EPA presenting developments on the remediation, instead of GE, which used to offer the updates as project manager of the work being conducted by contract with Sevenson Environmental Services.

"What GE is doing, GE should be presenting," said Winn. "This makes it look like the EPA and GE are the same thing. I think there should be a greater degree of separation."

"We do oversee the project, and we want it done well also," answered Dickerson.

GE Project Manager Andy Silfer spoke up that he was there to answer any questions as well, but that they felt it was best that the EPA present the public update on the project.

"We're here at the table," said Silfer.

Dickerson said that in addition to soil sampling, continued air monitoring will be conducted throughout and after the remediation. Additional measures meant to minimize exposure levels include use of a vapor suppresant foam on the removed sediment, and efforts being made to minimize the amount of time the contaminated soil is stored on the ground before it is exported from the area.

To date, more than 16,500 cubic yards of contaminated sediment has been removed from the lake. The toxic refuse is stored temporarily at GE's building 65 in Pittsfield, before being shipped by truck or rail to a licensed landfill site in Michigan.

The next phase to be conducted over the summer will be the installation of a 14-inch cap composed of sand and composted material, which will be held down with stone armoring along the shoreline, the course of action recommended in a 2006 pilot study by Sevenson Environmental Services.

Final conclusion of the plan for the remediated lake includes a 2,000 foot walking trail shrouded in 1,000 native trees and plants.

Becket Looks to Wind Power for Energy Savings

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
05:17AM / Tuesday, October 20, 2026

The single turbine is a low maintenance and has a 50-year life. The town went with wind power after finding a solar installation would be too difficult. 

BECKET, Mass. — The town unveiled a wind turbine Monday that will reduce electricity costs and show the benefits of renewable energy produced by wind.

Residents, town and state officials gathered outside the Town Hall for the ribbon cutting on a project first conceived nearly a dozen years ago.

The wind turbine stands 100-feet tall next to Town Hall and is from Oklahoma manufacturer Bergey Wind Power. It has a 50-year life and is a direct-drive permanent-magnet design, meaning it has no gearbox, making it low maintenance.

According to Garth Klimchuk, chair of the Becket Energy Committee, the town started discussions about a wind turbine in 2014. The turbine is expected to generate about 36,000 kilowatt-hours. Klimchuk said Town Hall uses about 24,000 kilowatt-hours, with excess power expected to go to the Highway Department. This is expected to save $9,000 annually from the electricity cost.

"This turbine is just going to be such a good thing for the town. It is really incredible. Zero-cost electricity. Zero cost to the town. Carbon free. Just a huge, huge milestone for us," he said.

The town received a grant from the state Department of Energy Resources totaling $139,500. The remaining funding for the project will come from a direct-pay investment tax credit under the federal Inflation Reduction Act. If the town does not receive the funding, voters at the annual town allocated $100,000 just in case, but Klimchuk said the town will only need about $60,000 to $70,000 if necessary.

"It's going to help the community. Hopefully, it'll lower our tax bills. And as we look at everything going around around the world right now, energy volatility has been with us for a long time. It's going to stay with us for a long time," said state Sen. Paul Mark. "So any move we can make as a community, whether as Becket specifically, as Berkshire County as a whole, but anything we can do to bring some of the reliability into our own hands, to produce a bit on our own, and just guarantee that in a renewable, safe way moving into the future, I think is going to pay off dividends."

The town has spent more than a decade reducing municipal energy consumption in a variety of ways including HVAC upgrades and LED street light conversions, bringing it to a Level 2 Green Community status.

While solar had been considered, interconnection constraints and limited grant opportunities made it harder to achieve. But the high elevation of Town Hall and a Small Wind Site evaluation done in 2023 and 2024 found the site was perfect for a turbine with favorably high winds.

State Rep. Leigh Davis praised the project as an example of a small town addressing a larger energy challenge through persistence and collaboration. She stressed that the single turbine represents a practical step toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels and said Becket's effort could serve as a model for communities across the commonwealth. 

"You hear about all these kind of big wind farms and solar farms and all these ways that we're gonna you know create green energy, but at the same time what we're not being sensitive to the landscape, and what I appreciate about this is that this is it's a single turbine, but it represents so much more," she said. "You're right. It's really adding to the ability for this town to contribute to green energy and to bringing our reliance on gasoline fuels back down to solving big problems."

Mark Rabinsky, deputy director of DOER's Green Communities Division, said the state supports municipalities with technical assistance and grants, and that reducing municipal energy costs can leave more resources for other local priorities. He presented the turbine as an example of state support working alongside local knowledge and decision-making. 

"I think that this is a really a great example of what green communities can do," he said. "I'm obviously a really big fan of the green communities program, but I think that connection between the state, what we're doing at the state, and that local level, and relying on the local knowledge here with Becket is a true testament to what we're doing."

Select Board Chair William Elovirta thanked everyone for being here and shared his memories of first coming tp Becket in 1946 before utility electricity arrived. His family and neighbors used small 32-volt generating plants and batteries. He recalled utility workers installing poles and wires by hand around 1947.